For those of you who didn't catch the PS2 original, Rockstar Games' Bully puts you in the shoes of a troubled teen by the name of Jimmy Hopkins, a bit of a roughneck kind of lad who, up until now, has been expelled from pretty much every school he has ever been to. That is until his mother takes him to Bullworth Academy, the toughest boarding school in the country, so she can go and enjoy her honeymoon with her new, as Jimmy calls him, 'rich guy with half a mind phoney'. Ahh, such nice language for a boy of his age!

Bully achieved some pretty high scores when it was first released on PS2 (under the title of Canis Canem Edit in Europe), but unfortunately a big thing happened at the time, which kind of left Bully without that much of an audience and caused it to go pretty much unnoticed. This was of course the release of the Xbox 360, which is probably the reason that the original version was canned on the Xbox. Now the 360 version is finally here, and rather than just make it a straight port, Rockstar have provided an assortment of extras for Bully: Scholarship Edition, including eight new missions, four new classes (math, music, geography and biology) and a two-player multiplayer mode, which involves two-player versions of the single player classes and arcade games.

Bully is pretty much the classic sandbox game that we've all come to know and indeed expect from Rockstar, what with their hugely massive Grand Theft Auto series. Indeed, in many ways it's a school-based version of GTA, albeit with much less violence and bad language. But Bully isn't just a cash-in of GTA's success like The Godfather; instead, Rockstar have taken the same kind of free-roaming gameplay and fitted it with a school timetable, which means that, yes, you do have full freedom, but you must also make your way back to school in order to get to lessons on time, unless you want to be caught either by the police or the prefects and marched back to your classroom. Thankfully, there is a nice big clock on the top left of the screen to remind you when it's time to start getting ready for your lessons.

The school lessons themselves are presented as mini-games, such as Music, Shop and Chemistry, where you must match the onscreen prompts to complete the class. Next up is English, which involves a collection of six letters and you must try to find as many words as possible using these letters within in the allotted time. Maths involves looking at the question on the left and picking the right answers from the choices presented on the right, while Biology involves identifying pieces of whatever animal it is you're trying to dissect, using the left stick as a scalpel to cut along the lines and then using forceps to extract the goods. Don't even get me started on Geography, something I wasn't very good at in school anyway; when I was made to look at the screen and try to pin the flags of each country into their correct places on a map, I decided to play truant, because sticking with the free-roaming approach, you don't have to actually go to your lessons - just be ready to run if you get spotted by the authorities!

If you do decide to be a good boy and go to school every day to complete your lessons, there are plenty of rewards - and no, I don't mean the kinds that will help you to get a good job when you leave! Think more along the lines of better combos to use to pummel your opponents with, or perhaps a nice shiny new BMX to use once you complete a shop lesson. And, while we're on the subject of combos, combat in Bully takes the same kind of approach as GTA, with the left trigger locking onto your opponent and the X button used to batter the bullies who try to pick on you into submission. There are also many weapons available, including a slingshot with a built-in scope, stink bombs, itching powder and eggs. Oh, and firecrackers, which can also be used to put into the school toilets if you're feeling a bit destructive! If only you could make some excuse to the prefects about how the toilet was blocked and nothing else would work...

The game begins with you arriving at the school and going to see the Headmaster, who then tells you to go to the boys' dorm. This is where you meet your first 'friends', Gary and Petey, and also get your first mission, which are set out pretty much exactly the same as the missions in GTA; go to the marker, watch the cut scene, then go out and go what you've gotta do. Missions mostly revolve around helping out the geeks, fighting the bullies and generally causing mischief inside and out of school. This includes one special mission that can only be completed on Halloween night, but I won't go into that, as you'll want to see what it involves for yourself, unless of course you've already completed it on the PS2. There are also errand missions that students and adults can give you, which earn you respect amongst the different cliques in Bullworth Academy, such as the Geeks (pretty much anyone in a green tank top), the Greasers (anyone for look-a-likes of the Fonz?), the Jocks (the big, football-playing thugs who delight in picking on smaller kids), all the way up to the owners of shops. Once you have completed a certain amount of missions you're given a skateboard, which is where Bully gets really interesting, as the school opens up, allowing you to roam the entire town beyond the school gates.

There are missions galore in this game and most of them are really quite enjoyable and amusing. Here's a little example; you just so happen to meet your gym teacher as he is coming out of an 'adult' retail outlet with some magazines he is using for 'research'. Suddenly and somewhat 'conveniently' he remembers that he was in charge of laundry today and has forgotten to pick up the girls' undergarments, which are in their dorm. Now you you must go to the girls dorm, climb up the side of the building and sneak in through the attic, downstairs and into each of the rooms to find the knickers, while being careful not to get caught by any authority! It's this kind of tongue-in-cheek humour that Rockstar is famous for, and in this regard, as well as many others, Bully doesn't disappoint.

Now, humour wouldn't be anything if the characters you interact with weren't up to scratch in terms of personality, and fortunately Rockstar have been pushing characterisation forward for years. Every character you meet in the main game actually has a personality, and even though they are mostly stereotypes with slightly dodgy graphical construction like square fingers, they are still some of the best game characters around. From the gym teacher to the crazy vagrant that lives in the schoolyard, right down to the cook who thinks smoking and coughing all over the school meals is perfectly fine, they are all so completely different and funny in their own ways. Take your two 'friends' I mentioned before, for example. First there's Petey, who is the kind of lad who will only do pretty much anything just to be someone's friend. You start to feel sorry for him throughout the game, as he doesn't even really seem like he should even be in Bullworth - he's a pretty ok guy. Then there is the bad egg, Gary, who might seem like he is well up for being mates and causing some havoc, but what are his real intentions? These two characters in particular are great examples of how much the characters feel like real people. There's even a drunken Father Christmas! What more could you want? Along with this is the way they are brilliantly lip-synched, which really adds a little bit more detail to them as a whole.

You will find all kinds of people in Bullworth and in the town outside its borders, and I strongly suggest that you just take some time to roam around, as you would in GTA. From prefects' comments to those of the younger kids, there really is a whole lot of variety in how the many pupils and townsfolk react to you and to others around them. Along with lots of people to talk to and interact with, there are tons of things to look for and plenty of side missions to complete, such as the radio transistors scattered around the town, which you must find and give to a tramp that lives in the school yard in exchange for some more combat moves. There are also 75 rubber bands to collect and once you have them all you unlock the rubber band ball. But I'll have to let you find out what this does for yourself, as I can't seem to find the last rubber band anywhere! In a town and school as big as this, this is pretty much a mission in itself. Taking another leaf out of San Andreas' book, Bully lets you customise Jimmy with different clothes and haircuts, including crazy unlocked outfits such as the alien suit. You even get given a nice jumper from your mum when it comes up to Christmas time - ahhh how sweet!

One thing that Bully did exceptionally well when it was first released on PS2 was cause a hell of a lot of controversy. This is pretty much typical Rockstar stuff. Man, I remember the headlines: new Game Condones Bullying Blah Blah Blah. As soon as those kinds of stories went in the papers, everyone seemed to want to get in on the act; from MPs to anti-bullying campaigners, everyone was complaining about it, which caused it to have to change the name to Canis Canem Edit (which is apparently Latin for dog eat dog). The problem is, all these people kicked up a stink without actually playing the game first - and if any of them had actually played the game first, then they would have realised that while it is set in a school and bullying does occur, you don't actually play as a bully. In fact, it's quite the opposite; you spend most of your time stopping the bullies from picking on smaller kids, so it's more about standing up to bullies. Yes, you can bully people, but prepare to be hunted down, caught and forced to mow the grass or shovel snow if you do, and you will feel guilty when mercilessly attacking the defenceless. Bully does not promote bullying in the slightest; in fact, it's probably the best anti-bullying game ever made. If all those people who were so quick to jump on the bandwagon had played the game in the first place, they would have realised this, and it probably wouldn't have had to change its name or face the various delays it has suffered.

What with this being a port from a PS2 game, the visuals aren't the best that they could be for Xbox 360, although they have certainly been polished up, especially in terms of the lighting and shadows, as well as a smoother frame rate, although having tested this on a normal TV and a monitor, everything seems to drop drastically when your playing on my telly to the point where it's really hard to tell which console you are actually playing on. Unfortunately, this isn't all, as there are still some niggling problems from the days of the PS2 that have managed creep into this version. These can be overlooked for the most part, such as how the frame rate sometimes drops or the visuals of some of the characters. However, there are still two major flaws; building pop-up, which is really frustrating and very noticeable as buildings blink into existence in your view, and the insanely long loading times, which happen every single time you go through a door or go to sleep. You would expect this to have been cleared up with the benefits of the 360's hard drive available, but sadly they haven't, so if you're going to play this game then be prepared for constant and annoyingly lengthy interruptions throughout the game.

Aside from a few hereditary problems brought over from the PS2, Bully: Scholarship Edition has managed to retain the same appeal it boasted when it was first released; with enjoyable characters and a story that's great fun, along with a host of things to see, do and find that will take you hours and hours to fully discover, Bully can definitely stand up to some of the bigger boys on 360 and is the perfect way to while away your time until the ever-nearing release of Grand Theft Auto IV.

Reviewed by Graham Hill for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).